1) Beth Orton, “Weather Alive” / Despite having used the term myself, I’m not always sure what music writers mean when they call pop songs “pocket symphonies.” I think they’re describing music like what Beth Orton makes on her latest; the veteran British songwriter pens lovely, lyrical songs that slowly move from tension to resolution, sometimes bobbing into jazz or folk or rock as they contract and expand. There are truly special moments on this record worth attending.
2) Nikki Lane, “Denim & Diamonds” / Lane’s latest, her most complete record to date, is marked by a beautiful bravado. Country and rock twine together, then give “normal” (whatever that means) a middle finger in the name of chasing life’s highs and lows with equal fervor.
3) Marisa Anderson, “Still, Here” / Few artists today are working at the level of guitarist-composer Marisa Anderson, who creates compact—yet cinematic—narratives without words. The songs on Anderson’s latest groan and breathe easy, pine and lament, wish for a better world and cherish the one we inhabit.
4) Jose Hernandez Diaz, “Sports Cards” for The Missouri Review / As a man who was once a boy spending so much free time on collecting and sorting and organizing and pricing and fretting over baseball cards, I was immediately drawn to the frame surrounding this poem. What you find inside—or on the back of the card, if you will—is a lyrical consideration of the price of dreams, who can afford them and how we piece together the promises of our future.
5) Kaitlin Ruiz, “I Had a Grandfather — Just the One” for Belt Magazine / My friend Kaitlin Ruiz owns a perspective the rest of the world could regularly stand to borrow. This brief, exquisite poem keeps watch with and for a grandfather who also owns a distinct way of seeing. Every word here matters, guiding the reader into a once-secret sanctuary for just a moment, one that marks us long beyond the final punctuation mark.